“So crossing the riverand walking the pathwe came at last to Kumasi.” – Kamau Brathwaite​

The Merchant, by Gary Butte (St. Lucia). Contemporary.

Prologue: The Merchant​Did he arrive at sunset’s orange houror with the anonymous midday bustlemarkets busy before Sabbath--and evening or noon height, him,stranger with strange wareslooking for a berthin the fabled city.

Who wants cantos from placards of bewildered widows?Totems to soft bones of decimated embryos?Androgynous puppets parading obscenely between certain jars?--“Any credit for dark sayings of Babylon, Bhutan or islands of the sea?”

Fifth Avenue needs no merchandise of prophets-- with their Greek vases their silicon tablets their first editions high speed subways and twin towers--won’t spare a dime for this third world primitivehis ark of Mesopotamian innocencehis naive style.

The Way Up, by Gary Butte.

The Way Up

From Ur to Haran down the Crescent Valley to Egyptback again to the terebinth trees of Mamre,and the Canaanite was then in the land.The Man came in the heat of the dayon their way to the boulevards and museumsthe malls and stadia, suburbs and ghettosto strange women and rich men’s catamites.

After, the plain of Siddim smoked like a cursed holocaust​and salt pillars lined the road to Zoar.

“the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” – Genesis 6:2

In the chronicles of giantsFire loved a woman of earthwith peacocks at her feethibiscus through her locksand deep dimples under her laughing--

when she betrayed him(his fantasies bored her eventually)for a one-boat fisherman and his spectacular netsflung over green islandsand flying fish --their son, confused between his elements,took to the airwavesand broadcast himself Huracán​furious against surf, hilldefiant lamp.

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